Not My Punny Valentines

Wow, it's raining like crazy outside - an incredibly rare event here. But instead of a cleansing refreshing rain, we get mud. It's all that dirt, sand, and dust in the air and all over the trees. Plus there's a lot of dirt/sand in the roads and that turns into mud puddles. There are no drainage ditches so it all just sits there. It'll cause havoc with the commuters as well. My sweetie is gonna be an unhappy camper when he gets home - the drive is bad enough during good weather.

Remember I told you before about my fabulously creative friend Rachael Thomas? Well she has graciously agreed to letting me post pics of her Valentine crusties. First is "Honey Bee Mine" one of her early pieces, which she made while I was still living nearby so I actually got to see all of the beautiful embroidery in person. I so loved this Valentine I wanted to steal it from her husband, which is hardly an appropriate gesture for the holiday.

Next up is the Valentine Rachael made for her son this year. The alphabet beads at the top say "yo ho ho" and the stem-stitched embroidery says "AAARRR you my Valentine?" My favorite touch is the plastic skulls dangling from the bottom. Looks like french knots texturing the face.

And this is the gift for her daughter. "Do you 'carrot' all for me?" and the alphabet beads across the bottom say "I dig you." Look at that great expression on the carrot's face and I love all the tiny quilting stitches.

Thank you, Rach, for letting me share these.

Happy Valentine's Day one and all. I made a batch of Pecan Chocolate Chip Shortbread last night and at the rate I'm eating it there won't be any left by tomorrow. But it's yummy while it lasts.

Well now I know why I don't get to see the cool olympic sports - they're on past my bedtime. I stayed up until 11:00pm last night watching figure skating and even then I had to give in to sleep before the final four pairs skated. Drat. Probably why I hardly saw any gymnastics from Athens either.

Last night I quilted turquoise spiders into my Space 4 Rent block with the googly eyes. Decided that the eyes looked kinda nervous and since lots of people get nervous around spiders, why not throw them in there. I liked the idea of trying to do Jetson style pets - maybe a cat with a bubble over its head, but there just wasn't enough room in that particular space, so that might pop up later on.

Today, instead of working on any of my many current projects, or starting the new patriotic quilt that I actually auditioned fabric for, I got out an old Halloween beading project and started working on it. See, I thought I'd look and see if I needed to buy any beads for it, but kinda got sucked into working on it. Discovered I need orange sequins - mmm sparkly and yet so hideous at the same time. Anything goes for Halloween.